Casshern: Revenge on the Narcissist
by Claire Burmot
Summary: Note: Not about the actual movie, I only used the chara. Casshern hunts down the man who contracted to murder his friends.


Casshern: Revenge on the Narcissist 

By: Carla Anderson

The moonlight shivered through the pillar of water as it shot up out of the spout placed in the cement. Drops landed on a carefully placed foot as it and its pair sprinted across the cement yard. The body powering the feet was lean, strong, and capable of what it had set out to do that night.

The zirconium armor, making the body more agile and faster since it was lightweight, barely reflected the pale light.

Quietly, the man jumped into the shadow of the building as a security guard came by the front exit. His short dark hair ruffled in the slight breeze. It wasn't long enough to cover his dark eyes as they glanced around the corner. A metal mask covered the lower half of his face.

This was not the way he would enter the building. His entrance was on the ground level, but not this side of the building. The destination, 30 floors up in the office of Mr. Richard Anderson. The man who he had come to kill.

Richard, who liked to call himself 'Rich' by name and trade, had done a lot to get on anybody's bad side. But somehow, he was the greased pig at the rodeo. No one could lay a hand on him and keep a good grip. To get on Casshern's bad side, the armored man sneaking around, all Rich had to do was assassinate a favored local politition and his associates.

These men, that had been prematurely laid six feet under, were going to lead the biggest 'Peace' effort ever tried. Involving the majority of the world's nations. Casshern had known some of these men personally.

But there was no way he was going up 30 stories and not be announced by it. His thrusters on his waist would be too loud, even if it would get him there quicker. The wires in each wrist wouldn't be able to support him for that long so he had one choice.

Casshern grabbed his left thruster and turned it into a thin, two-foot long, katana.

Hiding it in the shadow of his body, he sprinted around to the side of the building where there was an emergency exit. He slid the katana into the jam and cut off the lock and alarm with a downward thrust. The door opened outward and he went inside, pulling it shut behind him.

He was on the ground floor of the emergency stairs. Without hesitation, Casshern quickly climbed the stairs until it stopped on the 20th floor. There were other stairs, but he wouldn't need them. From here, he would use the elevator.

He got into one without meeting any of the guards on the floor and pressed the button for the 30th floor.

He waited tensely as the elevator climbed.

"Come on, Trevor. The floor is clear. Let's go get some food." A chubby guard said as he pushed the button for the elevator, not realizing it was already on the way up.

The other guard, a skinnier man and obviously named Trevor, walked up to him and sighed. "Do you always have to eat?"

"I told you. I have a high metabolism." Trevor scoughed at him and they both looked at the elevator as the doors opened.

Casshern looked up from his blade that he had been caressing the past few floors. There was not thought in his mind as he quickly stepped forward and sliced both men in one move. He couldn't be found and it was their fault they saw him.

The chubby man fell to his knees, his second set of lips opening on a roll on the front of his neck. Casshern tossed him into the elevator before his blood could hit the floor. Trevor stood and gurgled, his mouth widening as blood began to seep out the side of his face. The top half of his head began to slide forward before Casshern tossed him into the elevator, both halves, as well.

He looked down at the floor, no blood, then up, no other guards. He didn't want to kill the innocents, but if they were there and spotted him, it wasn't his fault whether they lived or not.

Faintly, in his left ear, he could hear people talking. They were too far for him to understand what they were saying, but he could still hear them.

Casshern turned and walked down the hall, but before he was halfway to the door he heard the voices coming from. It opened and a woman stepped out. He panicked for a second and looked around, there was no place to hide. Realizing that, he regained his calm and readied his katana. He didn't want to kill her, but she had seen him.

The woman closed the door behind her and stared at Casshern. Her long red hair was set in tight curls around her face and shoulders. Her dark green eyes studied him, not flinching. She wore light blue jeans and a black muscle tank top with a baggy white shirt over it, the front unbuttoned, showing the hilt of some sort of sword.

Casshern knew who this was. She was Valentine. The woman who was Rich's personal bodyguard and private assassin. She was the one who did the actual killings.

His eyes narrowed as the corner of her mouth tilted up in a small smile. She knew he wasn't supposed to be here and that if he wasn't supposed to be there, he needed to be removed.

The door clicked close behind her and she let her hands be loose by her sides. She stepped forward once and put her feet a foot apart. The click of heels could be heard.

It took only one blink and he heard before he saw the fast clicks of her heels as she sprinted towards him, her left hand reaching for the hilt and the sound of it sliding out. She knew what she was doing, obviously, or else she would have done something different.

Casshern's muscles tensed and another blink, she was close enough to hit.

Valentine jabbed at his left shoulder, pointing the tip of the blade down. Casshern stepped to his right, twisting his body as the blade was level with his hip.

The next move out of her he had expected. She twisted the sword and turned the swing into his hip in one liquid motion. During her first jab, Casshern had flipped his katana to a underhand hold and now he could block her move. The dull back of his katana pressed into his hip hard as her blade hit his.

Valentine kneeled on her right leg and kicked out with her left foot at Casshern's right knee. He swung his leg back, bending it at the hip. Her foot skimmed his armor, her stance now unbalanced on her right leg.

Casshern took advantage of this by grabbing her hair on the top of her head with his left hand and swinging his extended right leg around and towards her head with a s much force as he could in that stance.

She couldn't block it. Her left hand on her sword, her right not moving fast enough. Casshern's knee collided with her face and her body jerked back. He didn't let go of her hair as she fell to her back, and she let out a scream as some of the roots pulled free from her scalp.

'Damn..' Casshern grimaced. Now everyone would know he was there. He dropped her head and it bounced on the tiled floor.

He raised his katana to slice of her head and didn't see her raise her leg and, before he could block, she kicked his face, the heel driving into the mask.

Casshern stumbled back from the blow and Valentine stood up as fast as she could, her hair a mess and blood dripping from her nose and one corner of her mouth.

"How dare!" Her deep voice spat. Casshern hit the wall and stepped back at her as she swung at him again.

Their blades collided between them with a tinny clang. They were both pushing with the same amount of force. A stand still, one thing could push it either way.

"You'll pay..." Valentine whispered angrily at him. Casshern glared at her.

"I don't have time for this." He lessened his push so the back of his katana was against his chest by removing his right hand from the hilt. Valentine didn't expect what came next.

Instead of kicking or pushing her back, Casshern put his hand, palm first, on her forehead and shot off the tipped wrist-wire into her skull. It went in clean and easily from point blank distance, but went out like a cannon. Bits of blood, bone, and brain matter splattered the wall behind her where the tip stuck in the wall, a few inched deep in the metal beam.

Her eyes went wide and the pupils dilated wide open. Her jaw dropped and so did her sword. Casshern pushed her corpse back, away from him as it began to slump. He jerked the wire before she hit the floor and it split through the top of her skull along the suture. Drops of blood fell like rain from the now clean wire. He pulled it out of the wall and retracted it back into his wrist.

Casshern turned back to the door from where the woman had come through. He walked up to it and turned the knob, his weapon ready in his right hand. The he heard it. The clicks of the hammers of a double-barreled shotgun sliding back.

He quickly stepped sideways to avoid the shot as it put a rather large hole in the door.

The door was pulled inward by who presumably was the man Casshern had come for. Casshern stepped quickly back into the doorway and thrusted his katana deep into the stomach of the man with the shotgun.

Staring at Casshern with wide brown eyes was, indeed, Richard. Casshern smiled behind his mask, the excitement noticeable in his eyes.

He twisted the katana and pulled it up and inch. Rich grimaced and dropped the shotgun to the floor. He stepped back and Casshern followed him the few steps, holding the sword hilt deep in his upper stomach.

He twisted it the other way and cut up into Richard's diaphragm. He opened his mouth in a scream but nothing came out but a low, pain-filled, "Oh god.." His head tilted back for a moment before coming back to stare deep into Casshern's eyes. A sly, primitive smile curved his thin lips. "More..." His hands overlapped Casshern's on the hilt of the katana.

A look of total disgust covered Casshern's face. "You sick bastard." He said and pushed him back, slicing the sword up to cut open Richard's heart and rib cage.

Richard stumbled back and hit his desk then slid to the floor. Blood dripped steadily out of his mouth, that demented smile still on his thin, blood-covered lips.

Casshern watched as the man gave a deep throaty, gurgled laugh and was bleeding to death.

He was actually enjoying his slow painful death. This was how he had wanted to die.

Casshern walked up to him and sliced off his head in one cut, abruptly ending the sickening laugh and pleasure of a dying man.

He dropped the head with disgust and wiped his katana off with a napkin on the desk.

He had killed the narcissist, finally; along with his bodyguard. He had done what he had come to do.

Casshern changed his katana back into the thruster and replaced it onto his waist.

He picked up the headless corpse and brought it around the desk to the window where he threw it out. Glass and blood followed it 30 floors down where all of it landed with a splat, crunch, and shatterings of glass and bone.

He placed the head on the front of the desk like a name plate then left though the broken window, his thrusters gaining speed the farther he went. The police would be there soon. The window had tripped the alarm. But by the time they would get there, Casshern would be long gone.


End file.
